Five Things Meme: Eileen, Remus

For stoicstella: Five things Eileen Snape would change if she could turn back time (231 words)

1. She would have worn a nicer dress at her wedding. Or, for that matter, actually gotten dressed up for it at all.

2. To be honest, though, that would have required an actual wedding instead of just a quick ceremony down at the justice of the peace. So she would change that part, too.

3. Then again, an actual wedding would have meant telling her father she was marrying a Muggle. And no amount of turning back time would make Tobias Snape a wizard, much less a pureblood wizard of good breeding. So she wouldn't change that after all.

4. Maybe… maybe if she hadn't gotten pregnant, then she wouldn't have married him. Maybe she could change that, and maybe that would have been enough for her to avoid being chained to a man who was never capable of understanding her.

5. But no. Looking back at the full history of her life, tracing her fingers over Muggle and wizard photographs alike in a dark and musty album, she knows she would never choose to unmake her own son. But maybe if she had left her husband, if she had taken Severus and struck out on her own… early on, before Tobias insisted he attend that hateful Muggle school… Yes. Her hands fall away from a picture of the two of them, mother and infant son. She should have left.

For kirasha: Five things Remus Lupin secretly likes about being a werewolf (274 words)

1. When he was in school, he used to tell himself to look on the bright side—just think of all the classes he got to miss.

2. He likes being able to do something no one else in the Order can do. Oh, certainly, Severus is the master spy, but only Remus can play the part of a werewolf in Fenrir's pack.

3. Other people use drugs or alcohol (or yoga or jogging or knitting) to get "out of their heads" for a while, as a break from the stresses of life. Remus lives each day knowing that he will spend time every month out of his own head, and his coming to terms with that fact has allowed him to Deal With Things with more equanimity than most. He has come to depend on his transformations, if not exactly look forward to them, as a regular break from having to think. It helps him.

4. He has never really cared about clothes, and the werewolf thing makes a fairly good excuse for not accepting gifts like Molly Weasley's Christmas jumpers.

5. He really does have an improved sense of smell (and taste, incidentally) even when he's not in werewolf form. This ability has ranged from entertaining (being able to tell exactly what Sirius had been up to when he claimed he was just going to the loo) to life-saving: once, when Frank and Alice had them all over for supper, they'd put black olives in the casserole, not realizing that James' allergic reaction would have sent him to St Mungo's in three minutes flat—if he'd made it even that long.